


only a thought away (can't remember, won't forget)

by stillskies



Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillskies/pseuds/stillskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He draws to pass the time. Portraits of people he can only see sometimes, landscapes from his dreams that feel so real he knows they exist. Mythical animals that curl like smoke around arms he almost remembers. The face of a boy no one remembers.</p>
<p>Shizuka can't remember, but he refuses to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	only a thought away (can't remember, won't forget)

He draws to pass the time. Portraits of people he can only see sometimes, landscapes from his dreams that feel so real he knows they exist. Mythical animals that curl like smoke around arms he almost remembers. The face of a boy no one remembers.

Today, it’s a portrait. There are three people and he thinks he might remember them. He is shading the curls of the girl’s hair, darkening the eyes of the boys, making sure the glasses are just right.

“He doesn’t wear those anymore,” a quiet voice tells him.

Shizuka frowns and tries to remember. The memory eludes him, however, and he shrugs. The glasses look right, and who is to say this boy he doesn’t remember – possibly made up, but he tries not to think about that, because he feels his entire being might simply break apart – doesn’t wear these glasses. He shades in the shadows on the lenses, and if the shadows look more real – more alive – than simple shadows, he ignores it.

The voice beside him murmurs something and he stops shading long enough to watch the person leave. He has a vague impression that this person is important to him – not as important as the people in the picture, but something resonates in him as the person leaves. He thinks he sees a flash of gold curls before the door closes.

His attention returns to the paper and the world that tugs on memories he’s beginning to suspect no longer belong to him. It’s the only explanation he can come up with – that these things he sometimes remembers are not his.

It’s not as important to remember as it is not to forget, so he lets the wisps of memory escape him and focuses on the girl’s skirt. There are details missing still – he can’t figure out if the girl is smiling or crying. The boy with the glasses should be carrying something, but he can’t remember what.

There aren’t as many missing details this time, and he takes this as a sign. He knows that as soon as he can finish the details, something will happen.

The whisper of the door opening draws his attention from detailing the house in the background.

“You’re very stubborn,” a voice says. It’s different from the one that spoke to him earlier. He thinks he knows it – can almost hear the soft voice screaming at him about… something. He doesn’t turn around; something tells him that if he does, the voice will disappear and his tenuous grasp on not forgetting will slip.

“Perhaps,” he replies instead.

“You won’t remember,” the voice tells him softly, and Shizuka thinks he hears more than those words, almost hears something else.

“I won’t forget,” he corrects the voice, because that’s what he knows, what he feels is absolute. There is nothing more important that not forgetting the fragments. Eventually, the pieces will make a whole – distorted with flashes of faces and pangs of half-forgotten emotions, but whole.

Phantom fingers ghost through his hair, and Shizuka closes his eyes. He half remembers sleeping and feeling those fingers combing through his hair before he forgot.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he says to the sad smile in his thoughts.

The voice makes a noise of agreement. “You’re dreaming,” it says, “and Kohane-chan made a wish.”

The sad, wistful note stings. He remembers Kohane – she was a sad, lonely girl with long blonde curls. It takes him a moment to make the connection – the flash of blonde curls from before, the sad voice that left before this one came.

Kohane.

“She’s worried,” the voice says, and Shizuka thinks he hears more. _I am, too._

The girl should be smiling, he decides. It still doesn’t look right – she looks too… happy. He frowns and the voice sighs.

“You are a terrible artist,” it muses.

There is no point explaining the logic – he can’t see these things in his head, can only remember flashes of color and these crude drawings are his only connection to this important thing he mustn’t forget. The voice already knows.

“You’ll make her cry if you keep this up,” the voice sighs, and Shizuka vaguely remembers a promise – one about Kohane and being happy – but he can’t see the person he swore it to.

So he shrugs it off and stares at the picture. Some of the details are sharp – the edge of the leaves scattered on the ground, the support beams steadying the house – while other remain frustratingly vague – the expression on the boy with the glasses’ face, everything about the third boy. Shizuka thinks it might be him, but he can’t remember that place or these people or being anything but an aging shell of a man.

The ghostly fingers cover his eyes, and Shizuka relaxes into the almost-touch. “Pig-headed,” the voice says quietly, fondly. “It would be better if you forgot everything.” _Forgot me._

He’s sure that the voice belongs to the boy with glasses in the picture, but the certainty slips away the harder he tries to grasp it. The memories are becoming blurry around the edges, and everything is slipping into soft focus. He closes his eyes and concentrates and when he opens them again, he is alone and the room is dark. 

It's the difference between awake and dreams; the focus of the room, the biting edge of the colors. Everything in his dreams is softer, dull, except the voice that he's always waiting for, the one which never comes. Something tugs at his memory, an insistent pull that he has to physically shake away.

He returns his attention to the picture in front of him. His head must have hit the table when he dozed off; the girl's skirt is smudged and the grass is bleeding into the tree. The picture feels more dreamlike, less like reality. Something catches his eye; the boy is no longer wearing glasses. There are a few shreds of eraser on the page, but he doesn't recall erasing anything.

The harder he looks at the picture, the less he can remember, the more he forgets. His brow furrows and he puts pencil to paper, trying to picture the glasses, the boy, the girl, anything. They remain elusive, however, and the page remains scattered with remnants of erased memory with nothing to fill in the blanks.

_You won't remember._

Carefully, he places the page atop a stack of half-remembered memories and retrieves a clean sheet.

"I won't forget," he tells the ghosts in his head resolutely, and begins again.


End file.
